I like TTT, and I can watch it on DVD any time, but it's not in the same league as FotR, and I liked the theatrical RotK much better as well.  Whether I'll ultimately like the extended edition of FotR or RotK more remains to be seen.

Click here (or scroll down) to view my initial comments on the Special Extended Edition DVD.

The following was posted on January 10, 2003.

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

I saw this movie opening day, and enjoyed it, but not all that much.  Despite my efforts not to, I could not help but spend the entire time mentally comparing the events in the film with the events in the book, as best I remembered them.  That was distracting, and I felt like the three story lines were cut back and forth between too frequently, and the endless Helm's Deep battle didn't do much for me.  Dark, rainy, guys in black hitting other guys in black, with the outcome feeling pre-determined.  And how about we invest in some metal doors?  Or at least wooden ones thicker than a picnic table?  And perhaps a portcullis, and some boiling oil?

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

This is the fourth movie I've been to in recent months, and I can safely say that commercials and previews have gotten way out of hand.  I went to the 1pm show, was running late, got there at 1:08, according to the clock in the ticket office.  By the time I was able to buy my ticket it was 1:13, since there were 20 people in line and they had only one window open.  Lots of seniors, at least half the line, which I guess is common for 1pm on a weekday.  I never go to movies at that time, so news to me.

Anyway, I finally got my ticket and went in, at least 15 minutes after the 1pm start... and they were still playing previews.  I really didn't want to miss the start, since it's one of the best scenes in the entire film, with Gandalf falling down the crack in the mountain and battling the Balrog on the way.  However I also really didn't want to sit through the deafening Final Destination 2 trailer.  So I walked back to the snack bar, since I had a craving for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  The annoying part was that I had planned on popping into Target (just down the shopping center from the movie) to get some first, but with the big line and being late already, I figured I should forego them.  I would have easily had time, since the ticket line went down once I got mine, as a second window opened up.  Instead I paid $2.75 for a king size Reese's.  Yes, a healthy 69 cents per puck, or about 4x what it would cost in a real store.  I generally refuse to even consider buying any concessions at a movie theatre, since they are just so ridiculously overpriced, but I wanted them, and I figured 16 minutes of commercials and previews would be about the limit.

And I was right, since when I got back to the theatre it was just starting, with the fly over of the snowy mountain.  Which was nice, plenty of light to pick out a seat. It sucks when you come in a few minutes later or during the previews, and the scenes on the screen are all night and blackness.  You'll step in some guy's nachos trying to move over at that point.

Anyway, maybe I'm in the minority, but I think more than 15 minutes of commercials and previews is a bit much before a 3 hour movie.  I don't want to see any commercials for anything, ever, at the movies.  I'm paying at least $6.25 (that's the matinee discount, no less) for the privilege of being there, and if I'm foolish enough to buy some damn food, a lot more than that.  I mute and ignore commercials on TV, but it's free, so I can't really blame them for showing it.  Movies aren't free.  I can remember years ago when they first started showing that crap pre-movie, and people would boo and throw things and complain to the manager.  We've all been so beaten down now, and even if you did complain they're all just corporate drones, they'd give you a bunch of bullshit about how they can't control it, the commercials come from corporate, they are on the same reel with the film, etc. And they'd probably be telling the truth, but it would still be bullshit.

I could live with a lot fewer previews too.  I've seen the ones I want to see on the Internet already.

The pre-movie time has gotten really unpleasant, honesty.  Usually before the movie it's all stupid slide shows with ads for all the crap in the shopping center, and about half the slides are totally out of focus, while they're playing bad soft rock. That finally ends and it's 8 minutes of ads, then 7 of bad trailers.  Getting there late is the best answer, but if you're going to something popular right when it opens, you'll be stuck in the front row, far left corner, if you get there late enough to just see the movie you paid to see.

One other thing, while I'm bitching.

Why the hell do the movie ticket sellers need to be locked up like a jewelry store?  They don't have that much money, and they don't do anything difficult.  Cashiers in a store have hundreds in cash, bank tellers have thousands in cash, and they're out in the open.  At the store you can just reach over to the register if you want to rob things; there's zero security there.

But at the movies the ticket sellers are in this hermetically sealed vault which forces you to press your face up to some grill to hear what they are saying and to speak to them. There's always a hurricane force wind blowing in or out of the booth so you have to hold your money and the ticket lest it fly away, and basically you feel like you're dealing with a human ATM.

Yes, the ticket sellers are usually outside of the building, and if they were just sitting there next to a register they'd be sort of unprotected.  Just like every other kiosk in the mall, and quite a few stores.  But that's because the movies choose to set it up that way.  There's no reason they couldn't have the line come inside the theatre and past some cashiers.  Most movies now have a huge lobby with vast empty space, and could very easily move operations inside.  Just for whatever reason, the concept of a "box office" has become locked into our consciousness and that's what they do, no matter how inconvenient.

Anyway, now that I'm properly warmed up, on to the movie.

Well, one more bit of warm up.

One thing I ruminated upon at the very start was how inaccurate the title is.  Yes, it's the title of the second book in the series, and no, they couldn't really change it.  And yes, I'm glad they didn't, especially since it annoys the various idiots who yammer on about it being sacrilegious to the 9/11 victims.

But really, what does the movie have to do with the two towers?  You see a few shots of vast armies leaving Sauron's tower, and Sam/Frodo/Gollum are sort of near it at the black gate, but it's far from a major setting for the story, and we got a lot more shots of it in the first movie.  Saruman's tower in Isengard is shown a lot, but nothing happens there other than some orc armies being sent off to war.  At least not until the very end, when the Ents attack.  Which is probably the best thing in the movie, even if it's essentially a video game scene.

But back to the point, which was that it's odd to call the movie "The Two Towers", when there's hardly anything to do with either tower.  You could much more accurately call it the Ent Forest (Fanghorn) or Helm's Deep, or Wandering the Wilderness with Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol.  Since all of those things are much more germane to the body of the film than either tower, or both of them put together.

Not that any of this matters, titles seldom reflect exactly what happens in a movie, but I would think people who haven't read the books would wonder.

As for the movie, I did enjoy it a lot more this second viewing. As with the first film, the first time saw it I found myself mentally comparing the book events to the film events, and noting what had been changed.  I didn't want to do so with TTT, but I just couldn't help it.  And just like Fellowship, I did not have that problem the second viewing of TTT. Weird.

I liked TTT more the second viewing, but I still think Fellowship is a better movie.  A lot of critics said this one has too much action, and while ordinarily I find that a laughable concept, I have to agree.  The Helm's Deep section goes on way too long, and is too faithful to the book.  Much of what happens is just like the book, which isn't normally a bad thing, but in this case it drags.  Too long with orcs in black with black shields in the black night fighting with black weapons against humans in black in the black night on black stone walkways in the rain. The combat is highly un-technical as well; just a lot of tight focus chopping motions and slice and dice editing.  I thought the ending battle in Fellowship was far more effective and enjoyable, since it was in daylight, and with far fewer combatants.  I didn't feel the chaos and wildness in TTT, I just felt like there were way too many extras running hither and yon, and that it was silly none of the good guys ever got hit.  Obviously the problem with growing your own orcs is that they are about 3 weeks old when it comes time to fight, and have no idea how to use a weapon. They're pretty good shots with a bow, but despite having superior armor and about 100 pounds on every human they see, they get slaughtered like lambs.  Even fricking hobbits can knock them out by throwing rocks.  Why do orcs have shields when they never block anything?  Orcs look awesome, but they're in danger of becoming the new Stormtroopers, in terms of battle ability.

Speaking of orcs, I swear I could watch an entire movie just with them as actors. I loved the parts where the convoy was running with Merry and Pippen, and especially once they stop to rest and get slaughtered. They have such cool make up, and I love their evil, scarred, jet black faces.  The skin looks so cool, and the teeth are great, and they're just so bestial.  Plus the smaller goblins are all crazy looking, like shaved cats with their pointy ears and gaping mouths.  Their personality comes through very clearly, much better than it would if they were just in masks.

Unfortunately that's it for orc personality, since after that they are just heavily armored killing machines.  And not very efficient ones, at that.

While I thought the Helm's Deep section was too long and not very exciting, most of the other action sequences were great.  The opening is amazing, with Gandalf and the Balrog fighting as they fall, and the Gollum fight scenes are great, though they certainly make Sam look like a fat little bitch.  He's on his ass 2/3 of the time, and getting pinned and his neck-wrung the other 1/3.

I enjoy the warg fight also, though they got a bit too happy with the typical movie cliché where monsters/bad guys attack and kill instantly whenever the target is an anonymous extra, but always wait and pose dramatically when the target is a main character.  Which gives the main character time to fight back or be rescued.  Gimli benefits from this about half a dozen times over the course of the film.

What I liked about the Warg section was how fast and violent it was.  The Wargs are just flying, and when the go down, they go down hard.  They crash and flip and tumble, hurling their riders off like a drunken teen with a weak grip wiping out while car surfing.  Plus the wargs themselves are suitably evil and nasty, while the goblins on them are pointless.  You wonder why they even have riders, since the goblins on top do nothing but get chopped off, freeing up the wargs for biting.

The Ent attack at the amazing.  I thought the Ents moved unrealistically fast when they were smiting goblins, but it's such a cool scene I'll overlook that.  The scale of the battle and the destruction is glorious, and watching the Ents wade in and just start clubbing orcs into orbit is so cool. The flood is amazingly-well done also.  You can see every single structure teeming with workers, and all of them climbing for higher ground (scaffolding) as the water floods in.  Yes, the water comes in way way too quickly for just a dammed river, but it's an awesome sight as it washes hundreds of little monsters over the edge of the various canyons and trenches.  That's an awesome special effect; so well done and it combines the CG Ents with the tiny CG goblins, and o the CG (I assume?) water, with the real miniature Isengard model.  Which isn't really miniature, it's like the size of a parking lot.  Which is still a lot smaller than being the size of a golf course, but it's not exactly desk top size. Be cool on the DVD to see just how they did all of that.

On my second viewing I also enjoyed Gollum more, and was less conscious of him being a special effect.  Only a few times, in close ups, did I think how they had done it, rather than just enjoying the performance.  The over all story arc worked much better as well, with the cutting from one section to another feeling seamless and cohesive. I felt like there was too much jumping around during my the first viewing. 

I still saw no point in the whole added piece where Faramir drags the hobbits to Gondor.  It felt to me like Peter Jackson had the idea for the scene with Frodo standing on the bridge/platform, holding for the ring (which suddenly got a much longer chain) to the Ringwraith on wings, and wanted to film it really badly, no matter what he had to do make it happen. Since there didn't seem to be any other compelling reason for that whole detour.  It was a nice scene, but wasn't worth the trouble it took to get there.  I also didn't like basically the entire squadron finding out that he had a ring of power.  Also, Gandalf had to research deeply to even find out about a ring of power, much less that it was this specific one.  Yet apparently every guard knows and accepts this the minute they hear it?  And no one goes out after the departing hobbits on his own?

Most of their changes from the books have been real sound and have improved things, but I don't like this one, since it feels pointless.  They wanted to make Faramir have more substance or guts than his brother, and eventually triumph over the desire that claimed Boromir.  But he does that in the book too, and much more quickly.  Maybe they had all the ideas for the Gondor part, with the flying rocks and such, and just couldn't stand not to use it?

Anyway, I would have cut all of that, and just put in a scene like in the book, where Faramir lets them go out in the wilds.  They spent plenty of time with that to set up Gollum's split personality returning from the stress of his betrayal by master, as he sees it.

But perhaps the biggest improvement this time was my not drinking a soda as soon as the movie started.  Which meant I didn't need to pee desperately for the last hour of the film.  Much nicer viewing experience, though I would have enjoyed it more having someone to throw my arm around.  It was just my mom the first time, but it's still gratifying when a girl is grabbing at you in the scary parts.  More so if she's not related to you (other than by marriage) but still beats lying back listlessly, wondering why girls get so worked up over action scenes in a film.

So it's not a masterpiece, I guess I'd give it 3 or possibly 3.5 stars, out of four.  But after this second time I'm looking forward to the DVD a lot more than I was two days ago.

December 20, 2002

This is not a review.  Not that most of my other reviews are really official type "reviews" since I tend to just talk about aspects of the film/book/comic strip/restaurant, with some review mixed in.  But by that token these whole daily updates are generally "news reviews".

I'm sort of ambivalent about the film right now.  I liked a lot of it, and was a bit bored in some other spots.  I was prepared to find it transcendent and sob with delight through the battle scenes.  Instead I just marveled at the destruction and special effects.  The ending part where the Ents storm into Isengard was probably the best, primarily since the scale was larger, and it wasn't all in dark with rain falling, as Helm's deep was.

The opening was amazing, picking up where Gandalf was last seen, and covering his eventual return.  There was some effort to make you think maybe he was Saruman, but it was very half-hearted and lasted about two minutes.  In the book I recall being sure it was Saruman in disguise, the first time I read it, and kept expecting him to reveal himself at some moment of crisis for about 300 pages.  Obviously the movie made much less effort at that, mainly since Gandalf the White is Gandalf the Grey with straight hair and no hat, and a bleached robe.  IIRC in the book he looks entirely different, so much so that Aragorn and the others can't even recognize him, and only slowly come to believe it's him (or be fooled into thinking it's him, as I first thought).

The performances are great.  Gollum is amazing, really amazing.  He is so real, especially in the long shots.  There are repeated close ups of his face, as close or closer than the human actor's faces, and he has amazing expression, skin tone, lip movement, etc.  But it was the longer shots that I found the most impressive.  When he's just running around (usually on all fours) it's perfect.  Rocks move where his feet fall, he's got a shadow, the actors look right at him as he goes, his color changes as he goes through shadows, etc.  I was astonished.  They could easily do a character that looked human or animal, and you'd fully believe it was really there.  You knew Gollum was CG, so weighed that in your mind and wondered how they were fighting him and throwing him around so realistically.  If you somehow didn't know, or there weren't those close ups, you'd think they used a real person in some sort of a costume, or maybe enhanced the real person a bit.  That they created it entirely from digital effects was just unbelievable.

And he acts too, it's not like he's just this realistic manikin.  He has several soliloquies, delivering more dialogue than a lot of the actual actors.  The way they get emotions to register on his face and body language while he's talking, synching them perfectly to his words, is impressive.  He has awesome body language, throwing himself around and reacting wildly to some things.  The part where he messily devours a rabbit was amazingly funny. I was howling laughter, and was about the only one in the theatre having that reaction, but it was a great scene.  I was somewhat reminded of Dobby in Harry Potter by Gollum's self-flagellating and abasements, but they seemed to have emotional weight when Gollum did them.  In Harry Potter 2 it was just sort of a painful and cartoonish joke falling flat.

He really does deserve a best supporting actor nomination, and I thought the suggestion of that was ridiculous when I first read it in some early reviews.  If a person gave this performance, like in a costume, it would be a guaranteed nomination.  So why shouldn't a computer program get one?

As many of the critics had said, there is too much action.  I wouldn't exactly say there's too much, but it's not spread out that well.  You get none for an hour, then a little bit, then none, then a little bit, then like 40 minutes straight.  I think that much of it would be better if you didn't know the book plot well, since you'd be in doubt about what would happen next, and how things were going to turn out. And that was my main difficulty in enjoying the movie.

When I saw the first one a year ago, I wasn't that taken in.  I liked it, and admired the visuals and loved the few fight scenes, but I didn't really feel that involved in the movie since the whole time I was mentally comparing and calculating what was changed from the book.  Not that I think the books are in any way flawless or perfect; in fact I think most of the changes in the movie are improvements.  But I couldn't seem to help comparing everything as I watched it, and that kept me from really just enjoying the movie.

I saw it a second time a month later and liked it more, and didn't ruin it by the mental comparisons, but didn't think it was that great. I was sort of bored during some of the non-action stretches.

It wasn't until I saw it on DVD that I really began to appreciate the movie as a whole.  I was amazed how much I liked it when I saw the DVD, and it's stayed just as good, if not gotten better, each viewing since then.

Since I feel just about the same about #2 as I did about #1 after the first viewing, I don't really trust my reaction to it.  Plus I had such high expectations going in that almost anything was bound to disappoint.  There are three different plot threads going on, one of which has several flashbacks, and I didn't find it confusing, but I thought they switched too much.  I'd have liked more time on each one in a go, to get more involved with it.  The problem is that one of the threads is far shorter than the other two, and the one with Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas is far longer than the second thread, so they can't divide them up evenly.

Anyway, I'll see it again in a week or three and see how it moves me the second time.  Plus I spent the last hour of this one needing to take a Dr. Pepper-sponsored bathroom break, which certainly didn't help me sink into the fantasy world.  I'm looking forward to the extended edition DVD of this one to see what all was in the initial cut, and if that no-doubt longer version will not seem so "back and forth", as this one moved me.

December 21, 2002

I was aware of that; I've seen all of the making of documentaries on the normal and Special Edition LotR DVDs, as well as read a number of articles about it and seen other website features.  My point is how well it's done, and how well the computer graphics, especially for Gollum's face/expressions are done.

What I don't know is how they did it, exactly.  If you've not seen the movie, Gollum is far differently-proportioned than a human.  He's got a huge head and long, spindly arms, with giant feet and hands, and a sunken, tiny chest and torso.  Andy Serkis was acting out the scenes in this gray body suit with little computer sensors all over it, sensors that tracked his movements and position so the special effects crew could easily stick in the CG Gollum in the correct place.  My wondering is how they did it, since Andy in the suit is far larger and proportioned differently than the CG Gollum.  I'm assuming that they combined shots with him actually in them with others where the actors just pretended he was there.  Like they'd do one take with him to help Sam/Frodo figure where they should be looking and how they should be reacting, and then they'd do another one with nothing there.  Otherwise when putting in the final special effects, the techies would have to insert Gollum, and also erase large portions of Andy that would be visible around the sides of Gollum's arms and legs and body.

There are also a lot of shots where Gollum runs quickly on all fours, bounding up and down in a way a human just can't do.  He also takes a bunch of falls, flipping around and crashing down backwards, and contorting into a tiny ball or moving more quickly than a human could.  I don't have any actual count but I'd say at least 50% of the shots there's no way any human actor could have been more than just slightly aligned with where Gollum actually was.

My take on the special effects "how to" documentaries (they showed a lot of how they did Gollum in the FotR specials, without actually showing Gollum) was that Andy was there to provide guidance and inspiration, and they filmed him in some takes, but for most of the final shots he wasn't in front of the cameras. They don't build a big model dragon or cave troll for those types of scenes either; they just have a guy there with a stick and a tennis ball on top, so the actors know what to look at.  Those are easy since the monster special effect totally covers where the guy with the tennis ball is.  If they did Gollum over Andy every time, they would have had to do a bunch of cut and paste to put in background around the edges of Gollum, where Andy was visible, and that seems like it would be a lot more difficult than just doing some stuff where the actors pretended to have a Gollum before them.

However they exactly did it, the special effects were brilliant.  I'm wanting to see the movie again sooner than I thought I would, but I'm going to wait at least a week so it'll fade more from my mind.

I might delve into a bit more mental analysis of why I like Fellowship so much more than TTT at some point, but I'm not going there today, largely since I'm not sure why I feel the way I do.  During my first viewing of TTT I thought it jumped around between the 3 ongoing storylines too frequently, and that that kept me from getting into any of them that deeply.  I didn't notice that so much the second time, and didn't have a problem with it on the DVD, but I think I prefer a long story that unfolds slowly and with great nuance.  That's what Fellowship was, where it follows Frodo and a few others for the first hour and through the beginning of the quest, and then after Rivendale the party grows and they all stay together for almost the rest of the movie.  I don't normally have any problems with 2 or more story lines going on in the same movie, and I don't dislike TTT for it, but this is the only thing I can easily think of as a major difference and a possible reason for my preferring Fellowship.

Okay, I beat that one to death.

As for the TTT changes, there are lots of them.  They added about 35 minutes to Fellowship in the extended edition, if I recall correctly, and they've added 43 in TTT, so there's even more bonus stuff.  It's mixed in all throughout, and comes in largely in the form of character building stuff. Much of it is incidental, such as a scene in the flooded Isengard in the end, where Merry and Pippen are looking for food and find it floating out of a kitchen, along with two barrels of the Southfarthing pipe weed.  It's basically taken from the book, but gives some more nice character definition.  There's also a scene where Treebeard is carrying them along and leaves them to sleep in a grove one night.  They wake up the next morning and drink from the pitcher of water he's left them, and grow a bit taller, in an amusing and racing around fashion.  It's a funny scene, much like the one in the book, and I enjoyed it.

There are also several more scenes with Gandalf talking to Aragorn, mostly about the overall war. These serve as information/exposition for the viewer, letting you know more about what's going on in the bigger picture, but they're also about Aragorn being the future King. Gandalf is urging him to take his rightful place and unite the men of earth, etc.  There's also a longer version of the scene where Aragorn is walking along with the people exiting Rohan, before the warg attack, talking to "the blonde" (as Malaya took to scornfully calling her).  She's asking Aragorn about himself, who gave him the necklace he's wearing, and then she mentions that the king said he remembered Aragorn riding into a major battle years ago, when the king was a boy.  This leads to Aragorn revealing that he's actually 87 years old, and of the Dunadin, heirs of Isuldor who are prolonged of life.

I found that interesting since I always got the idea from the books that he was ancient, hundreds of years old or something, but it wasn't clear just why or how, other than that he was of the race of kings.  I didn't know if that meant he was essentially immortal, like the wizards and elves, and then in the Fellowship and theatrical TTT nothing was said of it, so I wondered if I'd been mistaken in the books or if they'd just changed that part entirely in the movies.

The bonus scenes that had the most impact on the plot starred Boromir and Faramir.  There was a good 10 minute scene added in with Boromir, a flashback in which he's addressing the troops who he's just lead to reclaim a city from Orcs.  He's friendly with Faramir and talking about what a great battle it was when they both grimace and mutter, "Can't he give us any peace?" and their dad comes up.  Boromir hugs him and is given much love by dad, but when Faramir comes over, dad's all scornful and blames Faramir for losing the city in the first place despite Boromir saying he didn't have enough troops to hold it.

Dad then gives Boromir a talk saying that a summons has just come from Elrond in Rivendale, and that Boromir must go and see what's doing.  However dad is pretty sure it's about the Ring, and he says that Boromir must return with it so they can use it to defeat the enemy and save Gondor.  Faramir volunteers to go since Boromir wants to stay and lead the armies, but dad is cruel and shoots Faramir down and says he only trusts his eldest son with this errand.

I don't recall any of that in the book, but it does a nice job showing why Boromir was so driven to get the ring, and adds some depth to Faramir.  Later when Sam and Frodo are captured after the Oliphant ambush, Faramir kicks over the dead Easternling who nearly fell on them from the Oliphant and gives a little speech about how this man was probably threatened or lied to and how he'd probably have much preferred to stay home in peace.

The sum of the scenes is to make Faramir seem far more introspective and intellectual than his brother, while also showing how badly he wants to prove his worth to daddy.  So you've got him really warring, wanting to do the right thing, which he thinks is to let Frodo and Sam go to destroy the ring, but also knowing what his daddy wants, and what he could do to make daddy love him. The scene in the city where he lets them go despite his life being forfeit by daddy's law has a lot more meaning in the extended edition.

Plus after that he leads them to a sewer entrance that will take them under the river and back out of the battle, towards Mordor, and when he asks Gollum how he'll take them, and Gollum says, Faramir grabs him and yells a warning that a dark stalker lives in the tunnels above the mountains, and that they must beware it and Gollum as a guide.

So much for Shelob being a surprise, eh?  I thought this scene was a bit much; if anyone isn't aware of Gollum's split personality and how he's planning to betray Sam and Frodo when he gets the chance, they're not going to put it all together thanks to this additional warning from Faramir.

After Faramir leaves them and they're walking through the tunnel, Sam tells Gollum that Frodo didn't want him to be hurt, that he was trying to help him. Gollum is all cheerful and says he understands and that there's no hard feelings, and Sam's all, "Well, that's very good of you." sounding convinced of Gollum's understanding.  I think this is to make Sam look less suspicious than he was for the rest of the movie, so as to make him more trusting in movie 3?

Speaking of Gollumn there's more of him in numerous scenes.  One interesting one showed him being beaten viciously by Faramir's men after they caught him at the pool, before he snaps back into his split personality and starts mumbling about the ring to Faramir.  I liked that one, it was short but nasty and gave Gollum more excuse for losing his mental battle with his dark side. There were also more scenes of him with Sam and Frodo on their trek, but none of them made a big change in anything plot-wise.

There were also a few more scenes of Gollum galloping around in the wilderness, kicking up rocks as he ran, eating a wriggling worm, and so on, and I liked all of those.

As for the hobbiteses, right at the start when Sam and Frodo are wandering before they get Gollum to guide them there's a nice scene with them climbing down a cliff via the aid of the magical Elvin rope, where Sam drops a box he's been carrying with special spices for cooking in it. It's a nice scene of his hopeful nature, and they do the funny bit with the rope coming down after them when he pulls it, all by surprise.

One other added bit was probably my favorite, and it was where the Orcs were carrying Merry and Pippen along. The hatred between the two different types of Orcs was brought out some, though less than it was in the book, and the sneaky, smaller, Sauron-serving ones were nastier, trying to snatch away the hobbits while coming closer to open battle with the Urak-Hai of Sarumon. I loved the orc scenes and their individual looks, and ate up the bonus footage of them.

All in all, I thought at least 90% of the added footage was a great improvement to the movie, though only the Faramir scenes did much to change or add to the plot.  So yes, I'd heartily recommend the extended edition, and I'm glad I waited to get it, rather than going for the regular DVD.  Especially since every Blockbuster on earth is now selling about 50 copies of it for $10 each.

December 5, 2003

The last one today is a second mail from C, author of the first one about playing D2 as Dubya.  He sent it in a week ago, but it's as applicable today as it was then; perhaps more so, with the movie coming up in less than two weeks.

Just a short commentary on TTT: you say it is more borring than FotR. I just re-read the books (just meaning 2 years ago), and I found that FotR is THE best part. The rest is basically hack-and-slash, with some politics thrown in. Although TTT had some horrible things in it (the presence of the elves at the battle at Helm's Keep, the overly large role of the two hobbits with the Ents, thus making the Ents seem unwise etc.), I actually enjoyed the movie better than the book (what is VERY far from the case with FotR). I actually found the Return of the King boring, desperately wanting it to end. In the movies' case, since they missed half of TTT. the. book from the movie, they might make RotK an interesting enough movie, we'll see.

I enjoyed TTT a lot more on my DVD viewing of the extended edition, and thought it was more changed and improved than the LotR extended edition was from the theatrical film. Plus I'm a fan of action movies, and there's a lot more action in TTT than LotR.  Yet despite that I liked LotR a lot more, both the theatrical and extended edition.

I can't put my finger on exactly why, but the most obvious difference between the films is that FotR followed one plot line for the entire film, and built up steadily to a grand conclusion, by which time you were very involved in the story and the individual characters.  TTT jumped around between at least three plot lines, one of which was all action (Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli chasing Merri and Pippin and then battling in Helm's Deep) while the other two stories (Frodo and Sam wandering -- Merri and Pippin with Treebeard) were mostly walking and talking until the very end.  And I suppose that while I enjoyed all three plot lines, the switching between them kept me from enjoying any of them as much as I did the central unified story in the first movie.

I'm not saying there was any other way to do TTT, and it doesn't bother me in books (LotR or others) when there are 2 or 3 plot lines going on at once, but my first viewing of TTT left me feeling that it jumped around too much, and while I don't really think that of the extended edition, I guess the multipart story never involves me as much as LotR did.

Whether more compelling events in the stories would have pulled me in tighter is unknown, but perhaps we'll find out in RotK, since as C says, it's got bigger and better events, including a bunch of the ones that should have been in TTT if they'd made it just as the books were written.

Of course we'll have to wait until fall of 2004 to get the extended edition of RotK, and since I've liked the extended editions of the first two films a lot more than the theatrical, it'll be a year before I can really, truly say which film I like the best.

And then you know there will be some sort of super duper extended double edition of all three movies coming out in 2006, and I'll have to get that and spend an entire waking day viewing all three of the films in sequence to see how they flow together in a full 11 hour saga.